21Dec15

Taliban controls or contests nearly all of southern Afghan province

The Taliban overran a strategic district in Helmand the same day the deputy
governor warned that the southern Afghan province was in danger of
collapsing. Sangin District fell to the Taliban despite the involvement of US
and British special operations forces as well as US air support in the province.

Afghan officials confirmed that the Taliban overran the Sangin district center
and seized control of all of its administrative buildings and the police
headquarters over the past 24 hours, Pajhwok Afghan News reported. An
estimated 150 Afghan policemen retreated from the district center to a
different area and remained surrounded by the Taliban. A member of
Afghanistan's parliament told the news agency that all police and military
bases in Sangin are now under the Taliban's control.

The Taliban has targeted Sangin for takeover since mid-2014. By August
2014, the situation in the district had deteriorated so dramatically that the
Afghan military was negotiating with the Taliban to avoid being ejected from
its administrative center. Last month, 65 Afghan soldiers and several of their
officers in Sangin laid down their weapons and surrendered to the Taliban
after their outpost was besieged for weeks without receiving reinforcements
or supplies.

The Taliban seized control of Sangin the same day that Mohammad Jan
Rasulyar, Helmand's deputy governor, issued a plea for President Ashraf
Ghani to take immediate action in the province. Rasulyar made his dramatic
statement in a post on Facebook.

"Your Excellency, Helmand is standing on the brink and there is a serious
need for you to come," Rasulyar wrote, according to Reuters.

Rasulyar also issued a scathing indictment of the Afghan government, the
military, and the international coalition, all of which have failed to support
Helmand's troops and policemen in the field.

"We don't provide food and ammunition to our forces on time, do not
evacuate our wounded and martyred soldiers from the battle field, and foreign
forces only watch the situation from their bases and don't provide support,"
he wrote.

Rasulyar claimed 44 soldiers and policemen were killed in the fighting in
Sangin, and another 90 were killed during recent fighting in Gereshk, a town
in Nahr-i-Sarraj district that is in danger of falling to the Taliban. He explained
that such high casualties are commonplace.

The fall of Sangin took place just days after the Afghan government said it
retook the district of Khanashin in southern Helmand. But the Taliban denied
that the government has regained control of Khanashin.

"The enemy claims of causing huge casualties to Mujahideen and retaking
large swaths of land is baseless propaganda merely aimed at raising the
spirits of their fighters and receiving cash rewards from their masters," the
Taliban said in a statement released on Voice of Jihad. The Taliban reported
that heavy fighting was ongoing in the district.

The Afghan jihadist group has continued to press its offensive in Helmand to
regain the ground lost between 2009-2011, during the US-led "surge." Of
Helmand's 13 districts, five are known to be controlled by the Taliban
(Nowzad, Musa Qala, Baghran, Dishu, and Sangin), and another five are
heavily contested (Nahr-i-Sarraj, Kajaki, Nad Ali, Garmsir and Khanashin). Of
the remaining three districts, The Long War Journal believes two (Washir and
Nawa-i-Barak) are contested, but the situation is unclear. Only Lashkar Gah,
the district that hosts the provincial capital, has not seen significant Taliban
activity.

The Taliban now controls 40 districts in Afghanistan and contests another 39,
according to data compiled by The Long War Journal. These numbers may be
low given the methodology used to assess control and contested districts.

The situation in southern Afghanistan has deteriorated since the US military
began withdrawing its forces beginning in 2012. Afghan forces have been
unable to prevent the return of the Taliban in many areas. Al Qaeda was so
emboldened by the withdrawal that it established two training camps in
Kandahar's Shorabak district. One of the two camps was nearly 30 square
miles in size. The US military destroyed the camps during a four-day assault in
October.

[Source: By Bill Roggio, The Long War Journal, NJ, 21Dec15]

This document has been published on 28Dec15 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes.